There
isn't much difference between the humor of Rodney Dangerfield and the
humor of Groucho. Both of those classic American icons specialized in
pricking the artificial bubble of the idle rich, and the pompously
sophisticated.

Groucho was free to
admit that it was reverse snobbery in his case, a combination of his superiority and inferiority complexes, best summed up in his famous
assertion that he would never join a club with low enough standards to
admit him. So he took great snide pleasure in all of his famous
screen humiliations of Margaret Dumont, who acted as his permanent
foil and stock society dame.

I'm not sure what
made Rodney inherit the mantle. Maybe the same kind of thing. He's a
working class guy who never really felt like he belonged to a lot of
the parties that invited him, I suppose, and he also felt genuinely
superior and inferior to the educated and idle rich that crossed his
path. He was rejected a few times himself, I guess, because he didn't
really get a career going until he was 40. Rodney even felt like he
failed at show business. Twice, in
fact! He quit comedy the second time, at age 28, to become a paint
salesman, and he didn't get back in show business until a dozen years
later. I guess he really didn't get any respect.

Whatever the
psychology behind it, he's the active leader in most laughs at the
expense of the country club set, having exercised this schtick in
films, in his act, and even in convenient cartoon format (remember him as the lost Burns
on The Simpsons?)

This is
one of his best revenge fantasies. He plays a successful clothing
store entrepreneur whose son wants to drop out of college. Rodney
knows the value of a good education, even though he never had one, so
he agrees to go to class side-by-side with his son in order to help
the boy stick it through.

NUDITY REPORT

Leslie Huntly is a naked
co-ed whom Rodney surprises in the shower.

Ah,
wouldn't it be nice to be a successful self-made billionaire and go to
the university? When he goes to a bar, he brings along a mafia guy to
protect him from bullies, and he hires Oingo Boingo to play at his
beer blast. He has a dorm room that looks like the Playboy Mansion,
has NASA write his astronomy papers, and actually hires Kurt Vonnegut
to write his paper on Kurt Vonnegut!

In a typical Rodney
twist, the English teacher tells him that the author of that paper
knows nothing about Vonnegut, so Rodney tells Kurt that he's going to
stop payment on the check, and they tell each other to go fuck off.
The part of Vonnegut is played by the real Kurt Vonnegut, by the way,
although he only has one line. (The rest is Rodney talking on the
phone to an unseen, unheard Vonnegut)

Two sided DVD, widescreen letterboxed on
one side, fullscreen on the other

no
meaningful DVD features, but an interesting collector's
booklet is packaged inside

some trivia:

The show begins in
the fall in Wisconsin, with the leaves turning, one month into the
school year, but two months later, the diving team is holding
outdoor meets with the crowd in shirtsleeves. Brrrr! The diving
and other outdoor scenes were actually filmed at USC and CSULA.

5,000 students at
the University of Wisconsin showed up at the casting call for
extras.

Rodney really applied to
attend Wisconsin when he finished high
school.

The late Sam
Kinison does his insane screaming routine as a history professor.

In a very surprising moment,
Rodney did a very touching reading of Dylan Thomas'
"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night", that brought
a bit of a catch to my throat. I rank that as the #2 example of
a moving lowbrow take on highbrow material, #1 being the
Brooklynese soliloquy from Henry V in Penny Marshall's
Renaissance Man.

If you like Rodney's
schtick - "I'm a regular guy with a slightly nasty streak toward
the pretentious" - he does it as well here as he ever has.

With their
dollars ... it was a major hit. Took in $91 million at
the domestic box office, and has since accumulated $41
million in rentals.

IMDb
guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of
excellence, about like three and a half stars
from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm
watchability, about like two and a half stars
from the critics. The fives are generally not
worthwhile unless they are really your kind of
material, about like two stars from the critics.
Films under five are generally awful even if you
like that kind of film, equivalent to about one
and a half stars from the critics or less,
depending on just how far below five the rating
is.

My own
guideline: A means the movie is so good it
will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not
good enough to win you over if you hate the
genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an
open mind about this type of film. C means it will only
appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover
appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you
like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if
you love the genre. F means that the film is not only
unappealing across-the-board, but technically
inept as well.

Based on this
description, this
film is a C+, maybe a B. Very solid effort from Rodney,
certain to please those who love comedies, and possibly with
some crossover appeal as well.